The Triton Montenegro Main Event is on course for a monstrous prize-pool after 41 players contributed 57 entries, at HKD 1 million ($127,000) apiece, on the opening day of this year’s tournament at the Maestral Resort, Budva.
With registration still open for another two levels on Day 2, the total number of entries seems certain to surpass the 63 who played the same event last year, at which Mikita Badziakouski won the $2.5 million first prize.
Badziakouski was in today’s field and made it through the day, but is one of the 32 remaining players peering upward in the leader board at Hong Kong’s Danny Tang. Tang, 28, increased his starting stack of 250,000 to 1.268 million, all the more impressive because he only entered in about Level 6 today and played only a couple of levels.
“It started when I made a right call against Steve O’Dwyer,” Tang said, before describing how he called a big over-bet from O’Dwyer looking at a board with four to a straight on it and one over-card to his pair of eights. O’Dwyer had nothing.
Tang then finished the job against O’Dwyer with aces to the American’s queens, and also picked off a bluff from Henrik Hecklen to knock him out. “It was a smooth day,” Tang said. “Sometimes poker is like that.”
The overnight top five includes Triton Ambassador Jason Koon, who was again at his very best, and Christoph Vogelsang, who sat at Tang’s table for much of the late stages. Tony G made a late and garrulous entry and quickly knocked out at least two people to amass a stack of 844,000. Matthias Eibinger, Steffen Sontheimer and Bryn Kenney are also among the big stacks.
Kenney, of course, has already won one title here in Montenegro this week, but everyone will have their work cut out to prevail from a frightening field. Tom Dwan, another Triton Ambassador, sat down for his first tournament of the week, as well as fellow cash game beasts Timofey Kuznetsov and Dan “Jungleman” Cates.
Triton co-founders Paul Phua and Richard Yong played much of the day at the same table, while Richard’s son Wai Kin, also a former Triton Series winner, is also involved. Richard was one of Tony G’s late victims, but will almost certainly re-enter tomorrow.
The full list of remaining players, and their chip counts and Day 2 seat draw, is below.
| Name | Country | Chips | Seat |
| Danny Tang | Hong Kong | 1,268,000 | 3-3 |
| Jason Koon | United States | 998,000 | 5-8 |
| Christoph Vogelsang | Germany | 849,000 | 5-9 |
| Tony G | Lithuania | 844,000 | 5-3 |
| Matthias Eibinger | Austria | 829,000 | 6-1 |
| Steffen Sontheimer | Germany | 815,000 | 3-9 |
| Bryn Kenney | United States | 669,000 | 6-5 |
| Leon Tsoukerik | Czech Republic | 589,000 | 6-8 |
| Michael Watson | Canada | 583,000 | 2-9 |
| Timofey Kuznetsov | Russia | 517,000 | 6-2 |
| Alexander Foxen | United States | 504,000 | 5-1 |
| Erik Seidel | United States | 494,000 | 1-7 |
| Nati Amedi | Israel | 415,000 | 1-1 |
| Daniel Cates | United States | 405,000 | 2-7 |
| Sergio Aido | Spain | 364,000 | 3-1 |
| Igor Kurganov | Netherlands | 350,000 | 3-5 |
| Paul Phua | Malaysia | 315,000 | 1-2 |
| Timothy Adams | Canada | 309,000 | 2-6 |
| Linus Loeliger | Switzerland | 303,000 | 3-8 |
| Wai Kin Yong | Malaysia | 294,000 | 5-5 |
| Peter Jetten | Canada | 290,000 | 2-8 |
| Xuan Tan | China | 285,000 | 2-3 |
| Henrik Hecklen | Denmark | 247,000 | 5-6 |
| Christopher Michael Soyza | Malaysia | 243,000 | 1-6 |
| Zhe Bian | China | 240,000 | 6-7 |
| Steve O Dwyer | United States | 239,000 | 3-7 |
| David Peters | United States | 231,000 | 2-5 |
| Jesus Cortes | Spain | 169,000 | 1-5 |
| Dan Larsen | Sweden | 162,000 | 6-6 |
| Mikita Badziakouski | Belarus | 160,000 | 3-2 |
| Thomas Anthony Dwan | United States | 148,000 | 1-9 |
| Luc Greenwood | Canada | 122,000 | 2-1 |
Play resumes at 12pm local time, with registration open until just after 2pm. The full extent of the prize-pool will be known then, before they will play to the final table.
Photography by Joe Giron/www.pokerphotoarchive.com
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